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"You know, I don't think I ever had a religious aspiration, a spiri-tual goal, so to speak, that wasn't drenched in something materialisticand glamorous, do you know what I mean?""Of course.""But with Dora, it's different. Dora really doesn't care about ma-terial things. The relics, the icons, what do they mean to Dora? Dorabelieves against impossible psychological and intellectual odds thatGod exists." He stopped again, shaking his head with regret.
You were right in what you said to me earlier. I am a racketeer.
Even for my beloved Wynken I had an angle, what they call now anagenda. Dora is no racketeer."I remembered his remark in the barroom, "I think I sold my soulfor places like this." I had known what he was talking about when hesaid it. I knew it now.
"Let me get back to the story. Early on, as I told you, I gave upthat idea of a secular religion. By the time Dora started in earnest, Ihadn't thought about those ambitions in years. I had Dora. And I hadWynken as my obsession. I chased down more of Wynken's books,and managed through my various connections to purchase five differ-ent letters of the period which made clear mention of Wynken deWilde and Blanche De Wilde and her husband, Darnien, as well. Ihad searchers digging for me in Europe and America. Rhinelandmysticism, dig into it.
"My researchers found a capsule version of Wynken's story in acouple of German texts. Something about women practicing the ritesof Diana, witchcraft. Wynken dragged out of the monastery and pub-licly accused. The record of the trial, however, was lost.
"It had not survived the Second World War. But in other placesthere were other documents, caches of letters. Once you had the codeword Wynken梠nce you knew what to look for梱ou were on theway.
"When I had a free hour I sat down and looked at Wynken's littlenaked people, and I memorized his poems of love. I knew his poemsso that I could sing them. When I saw Dora for weekends梐nd wemet somewhere whenever possible桰 would recite them to Dora andmaybe even show her my latest find.
"She tolerated my 'Burnt-put hippie version of free love and mysticism,'
as she called it. 'I love you, Roge,' she'd say. 'But you're soromantic to think this bad priest was some sort of saint. All he did wassleep with these women, didn't he? And the books were ways ofcommunicating among the others . . . when to meet.'
" 'Ah, but Dora,' I would say, 'there was not a vicious or uglyword in the work of Wynken de Wilde. You see for yourself.' Sixbooks I had by then. It was all about love. My present translator, aprofessor at Columbia, had marveled at the mysticism of the poetry,how it was a blending of love of God and the flesh. Dora didn't buy it.
But Dora was already obsessed with her own religious questions.
Dora was reading Paul Tillich and William James and Erasmus andlots of books on the state of the world today. That's Dora's obsession,the State of the World Today.""And Dora won't care about those books of Wynken's if I getthem to her.""No, she won't touch any of my collection, not now!" he said.
"Yet you want me to protect all these things," I said.
"Two years ago," he sighed. "A couple of news articles! Noconnection to her, you understand, but with her, my cover was blownforever. She'd been suspecting. It was inevitable, she said, that she'dfigure out my money wasn't clean."He shook his head. "Not clean," he said again. He went on. "Thelast thing she let me do was buy the convent for her. One million forthe building. And one million to gut it of all the modern desecrationsand leave it the way it had been for the nuns in the 1880s, with chapeland refectory and dormitory rooms and wide corridors. .. .
"But even that, she took with reluctance. As for the artwork,forget it. She may never take from me the money she needs to educateher followers there, her order or whatever the hell a televangelistcalls it. The cable TV connection is nothing compared to what Icould have made it, fixing up that convent as the base. And thecollection梩he statues, icons梚magine it. 'I could make you as big as BillyGraham or Jerry Falwell, darling,' I said to her. 'You can't turn awayfrom my money, not for Jesus' sake/ "He shook his head despairingly. "She meets with me now out ofcompassion, and of that my beautiful daughter has an endless supply.
Sometimes she'll take a little gift. Tonight, she would not. Oncewhen the program almost went under, she accepted just enough toget it over the hump. But my saints and angels, she won't touch them.
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